?

I refuse to accept the definition of gender sociologists peddle; it's much more reasonable to define gender in terms of 'gendered behaviour' relative to certain masculine or feminine traits, which arise--probably mostly--from biology. Redefining gender into something wholly social might be useful in terms of the sex-gender distinction, but it seems to lead most people away from the underlying causes of personality and behavioural differences between masculine and feminine individuals.

And, no, Verbatim, you and I are not discussing this again. 

Abstain.

Which then misses out the possibility of a good consequence for a stupid reason.

Religious affiliation should not be a viable reason for any vote, good or bad, on any bill.

I agree in principle, but I'm rather more concerned with the consequences. If the Iran nuclear deal fell through because of a bunch of Islamaphobic Jewish senators, it would still result in the (assumed) positive consequence of the deal not taking place.

The difference between that and your example is that it'd be utterly fucking stupid to make the pig America's national animal.

GOT EM

20 regular, 20 ribbed and 20 flavoured.

What the fuck is wrong with my family.

What the fuck?

So I found this Guardian article which actually provides a nice summary of his views.

The Economy:

Corbyn is opposed to austerity and plans to bring down the deficit by growing the economy and taxing the wealthy instead.

I'm not opposed to being anti-austerity in principle. I've moderated my views on austerity a lot from a year ago. However, taxing the wealthy isn't a viable plan when it comes to closing the deficit; an income tax rate of fifty percent scrapes the top of the laffer curve, and by our best estimates it would raise around £100 million. This is pocket change to the national government. Capital gains tax? Chamley-Judd and Atkinson-Stiglitz both try and show that zero taxation, while work which finds a positive optimal rate puts it in the area of eight percent.

Corbyn hits a lot of the right notes when it comes to the British economy--such as our depressed productivity--but his solutions seem rather woeful.

He intends to introduce a “people’s quantitative easing”, which would allow the Bank of England to print money to invest in large-scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects, partly through a national investment bank.

A national investment bank is a good idea, but affiliating it with the Bank of England is not. There are serious risks to both the Bank's independence and policy implementation coming from "People's QE". Not to mention it was designed by an accountant, and there is absolutely zero evidence that it would help anything in the long-run even if implemented effectively.

"People's Quantitative Easing" is snake oil.

Corbyn says he will fund this by reducing the “tax gap” and ending corporate tax reliefs.

Corporation tax should be abolished. Plain and simple.

Taxes:

Corbyn says there is £20bn in tax debt uncollected by HMRC every year and another £20bn in tax avoidance and a further £80bn in tax evasion that needs to be addressed.

Utter nonsense.

Education:

Corbyn has proposed a National Education Service, which he says would be “every bit as vital and as free at the point of use as our NHS”. The service would begin with universal childcare, give more power to local authorities, rethink the role of free schools and academies, introduce a minimum wage for apprentices and put more money into adult learning.

How the fuck is he going to fund universal childcare?

I also don't know why you'd want to introduce a minimum wage for apprentices, since the whole point of them is that they build experience not yet acquired. Targeted government transfers? Sure, but a minimum wage seems to defeat the object of apprenticeships in the first place.

Corbyn has said he will also look at abolishing the charitable status of private schools but admitted it would be “very difficult to do”.

On the contrary, we really should be encouraging private education via tax credits to families. Taxing profits is a dumb idea in the first place, but I have no idea why anybody would think it a good idea to tax schools' profits especially.

He wants to scrap tuition fees

Dumb, dumb and more fucking dumb. The repayment system for HE fees in the UK is actually very reasonable and progressive than the prior alternative; scrapping fees would only really help those with the largest eventual debt burden  (the rich). Not to mention, countries like Germany that manage to get away with "free" higher education only do so by barring 40-50pc of the population from getting a degree.

And look at Scotland: free higher education has essentially just become the subsidisation of the middle class's aspirations.

Housing:

Corbyn would introduce rent controls in expensive places

Insanely stupid, and would result in worse quality housing.

Immigration:

Corbyn has consistently argued that immigration is not a drain on the economy and has campaigned on behalf of asylum seekers

Credit where credit is due.

Defence:

Corbyn intends to withdraw from Nato and opposes the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Fucking why? What would that accomplish? The vast majority of maritime and geostrategists have argued for the importance of NATO and nuclear weapons.

He is in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament and has called for a “radically different international policy” based on “political and not military solutions”.

Right, so his foreign policy amounts to all the countries of the world linking hands around a big tree and singing Kumba-fucking-ya.

Public ownership:

Corbyn plans to renationalise the energy companies to bring energy prices back down.

Yes, and we all saw how well a nationalised energy sector with political incentives worked out back in the 70s and 80s. The current malaise in the energy sector is due to too much state involvement, not too little; prices were at their lowest point in the late 1990s, when the market was at its most liberalised.

Corbyn also plans to renationalise the railways

FUCKING WHY?

Healthcare:

Corbyn has promised a “fully funded NHS, integrated with social care, with an end to privatisation in health”. His website states that the “principle of universal healthcare which is free at the point of use is something that we all deserve and should be absolutely protected.”

Not only is there nothing magical about a service being free at the point of use, but only somebody who has never looked at systems outside of his home country would think a highly-centralised national healthcare system is synonymous with universal healthcare. NHS funding requirements how outstripped economic growth since its establishment, and we know that competition between hospitals improves performance.

This idea that we can have a fully funded, centralised, nationalised healthcare system with no private involvement is a fucking fantasy.

Corbyn has also pledged to tackle the “mental health crisis” and improve mental health coverage in the country. He will grow rather than cut mental health budgets and ensure mental health education is taught in schools.

Behind him 100pc here.

Gender equality:

He also wants all companies to publish details of their equal pay arrangements, intends his cabinet to be made up of 50% women and wants to “work towards” 50% of all Labour MPs being women..

No, No, No, NO, NO, FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Foreign policy:

Corbyn was opposed to the Iraq war and has suggested that Tony Blair should stand trial as a war criminal over it.

Despite the fact Blair committed no crimes? The only organisation with the authority to rule the Iraq War as criminal has made no such ruling.

Corbyn has hinted that Britain should seek greater diplomatic relations with Russia. He previously described the Kremlin’s state propaganda channel Russia Today as “more objective on Libya than most” and believes that the Ukraine crisis was caused by the west and Nato.

I don't even know what to say to this.

So I'm just sat there trying to take over Scotland but I get a cease hostilities order. I wait out the order, attack again and he fucking sends another. If I don't comply, I'll be excommunicated. It's fucking annoying.

Labour is fucked.

And so is the country if he gets into power.

So just to double check, we aren't actually forking out £26 billion a year it's that the companies producing/using the fuels that are fucking up the health of the population/environment etc are not being kicked hard enough in the bollocks for their practices and the detrimental effect is costing the UK equivalent to that sum?

Essentially.

The negative effects of fossil fuel consumption is equal to £26bn, which means that their activities are essentially under-priced. They are bearing an aggregate cost which is £26bn below the actual cost of their behaviour, making it functionally equivalent to the government just giving them that money.

Is this a good thing? I don't speak moneyspeak.

No, it's awful.

LSE Blogs.

New figures published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that the UK Government may not be looking in the right place if it wants to cut energy subsidies. The IMF’s latest analysis estimates that the UK will spend about US$41 billion (£26 billion), equivalent to 1.37 per cent of its GDP, on subsidies for fossil fuels this year. The bulk of this total is due to fiscal policies that do not address externalities, such as global warming and local air pollution, caused by the consumption of oil, coal and gas.

The most recent report by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants in 2010 concluded that atmospheric particles from human activities, such as the burning of coal and diesel, cause nearly 29,000 premature deaths in the UK each year. The premature deaths and illnesses caused by air pollution have a damaging effect on the UK economy and the failure to take them into account adequately in UK tax policy represents an effective subsidy, according to the IMF.

Jesus that first image.

Were the garbage men on strike or something?

Science reaches objective facts, but physics only reaches conclusions based on assumptions?

All science only reaches conclusions on the basis of some assumed values. All human activity in the quest for knowledge take place on the basis of some assumed values. You have to make the assumption to get the ball rolling, otherwise there is nowhere to go.

No longer would anyone be able to make vapid appeals to nature with regards to how people should be treated, or how people should be expected to behave, based solely on their biological sex

Wow, some serious fucking Deja Vu right now.

Nevertheless, people oughtn't do that anyway. You don't need to hope gender is one way or the other in order to call somebody a fucking cunt for forcing his wife to be the "homemaker". Even if gender identity are (largely) biological and innate, that's no justification for treating women are more or less respectfully.

It's just a case of cunts will be cunts.

EDIT: Goddamn, trying to write a post about this is like walking through a fucking minefield.